A Year Without Red
by TheChippingFeels
Summary: He didn't want to believe her when she told him she was leaving.


**I know I'm not the only one who's severely disappointed in the apparent lack of Frankenwolf (seriously Red Warrior came out of nowhere and while I do appreciate lgbt representation I would have preferred it with Merida since Ruby has never been shown as lesbian or bisexual and Frankenwolf and Red Warrior make more sense when you consider the ships). But we could still have one-sided Frankenwolf.**

 **Disclaimer: If I owned OUAT Frankenwolf and Sleeping Warrior would be canon.**

 **A Year Without Red**

"So you're going back?" he asked her while trying to mask the sadness in his voice. Victor stared at the drink in his hand as the conversation went on, the condensated water covered his palms and he focused on the floating ice cubes. Sitting next to him was Ruby.

She nodded, "Anton found a magic bean in the burned fields, he said I could use it to go back to my pack. And, well, it's been lonely being the only one of my kind." She told him. The diner was empty for everyone except the two of them, after the ceremony of Prince Neal Victor had been waiting for the diner to clear up so he could have a moment alone with Ruby. He offered to help clean up but she said that she needed to tell him something.

It wasn't what he had expected, he expected her to say something like she had gotten her own apartment, that she was feeling down about being a werewolf, that she had a new boyfriend. Anything would have been less painful than that she was leaving Storybrooke to return to the Enchanted Forest.

No, her having a boyfriend might be just as painful.

Because Victor was in love with Ruby.

He had admired her for a while, during the curse he had admired her physically, the part of his cursed self that he had loathed. When Emma had arrived things had changed for him, for everyone, since the days actually started to change rather than repeat over and over, his curse self had started to change along with everyone else. He started to see Ruby in a different light, he still wanted her physically, Victor Frankenstein was almost bursting though the surface of Dr. Whale once in a while, not that he realized it.

When he had gotten his memories back things were different. He had remembered his brother, his failures, everything. The town still looked at him as the sleezy, alcoholic doctor and the few people that Dr. Whale had befriended quickly left. But that didn't matter to him, he had tried desperately to get back to his brother, to bring the dead back to life, to just do something he aspired to do.

But he never aspired to fall in love with Ruby Lucas when she caught him from falling off the dock. All of the regret and failure had lead him to that dock but she didn't let him fall. She had talked to him, told him about her past, and for the first time in as long as he could remember he felt open. Victor felt like he could talk to her 'monster to monster' and when she had broken out into a smile when he had saved Greg Mendell, Victor knew that there was no going back.

He was in love with Ruby Lucas and now she was leaving.

"That's great." He said with an unconvincing smile, Ruby seemed happy enough, Ruby could tell that he didn't mean it. He took a drink and tried to wash away his emotions with alcohol, a trick he had learned from Whale. He couldn't look at her, he couldn't look at her face if she was happy to be going and he couldn't look at her face if she was in pain. So he focused on his drink, his hands, and the counter.

"So you're going to be gone for how long?" he asked her, Victor's eyes drifted to Ruby even though he was facing the wall in front of them. She was giving him a small smile and her eyes were sincere, he turned his head and faced her.

Ruby shrugged, "I don't know, when this curse is broken everyone will return so I might not need to." She didn't make eye contact with him, going home would mean the Enchanted Forest for her, but A Land Without Color for him. When he thought about it, A Land Without Magic and A Land Without Color both meant nothing to him now, in both he was friendless and a mess. The difference that made him prefer Storybrooke to his old world was that Storybrooke had Ruby, up until now it did apparently.

"Well," he took a long pause and searched for the right words, Victor tried as hard as he could to not look into her eyes, ever since the first curse had broken and he was able to truly appreciate color he often found himself getting lost in the hazel that surrounded her pupils. "I hope you find what you're looking for." He finally let out, he gave her a smile and she responded with sad eyes.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked. Victor wasn't sure how to respond, he wanted to be angry, no he was absolutely not going to be okay, if she really cared about whether or not he would be okay then she wouldn't be leaving. She would stay with he grandmother and him and the town, he would have gladly let her bite him if it meant she would stay. But she had made her decision, he reminded himself, and it wouldn't be right to talk her out of it. So he nodded and let her believe it.

They finished drinking and before he left she wrapped her arms around him. She was standing on her toes as Victor returned the embrace, he closed his eyes as he let what he knew would be their final moment sink in. Victor wanted to tell her he loved her, to kiss her, he wanted to go with her, for her to stay, for anything but what was going to happen, but the truth was that Ruby was leaving and there was a strong possibility that Dr. Frankenstein would never see her again.

He wanted to stand there in embrace for days, forever sounded good, he didn't want her to slip through his fingers into another realm. But eventually they did break apart and he told her goodbye one last time before he walked out the door of the diner.

 _I will see you again, someday._ He thought as he started his car, and that was a promise he hoped he could keep. His life had been filled with promises he had made and couldn't keep due to his failures, but this one he needed to keep, not for his dead mother or brother or the Queen, but for himself. One day, he would see Ruby Lucas again.

As he drove to his condo and went to bed it still didn't seem real, it didn't seem real that the brightest color in his life was fading. It was hard to sleep that night with the knowledge that somewhere in the town a portal was being opened to take his wolf girl away from him.

And in the middle of the night he realized that he hadn't told her he loved her, and that realization gave all the more reason to see her again. Victor needed to see her and tell her how he felt, how he had felt for nearly a year and a half. But eventually he did go to sleep.

Waking up he told himself everything that had happened was a dream.

He told himself that for hours, almost convinced himself at one moment.

Until he arrived at the Bed and Breakfast where there was one tall, brunette wolf girl missing from the staff.

She was gone.

 **So I might put on one or two more chapters, what do you guys think?**


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